Collectors · Knowledge & reference

Wikipedia API in Python

Article summaries by title list or search query — extract, description, thumbnail, Wikidata id. One POST from Python with the input, rows back as JSON with 16 fields, $0.0005 per delivered article. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts { — A Python requests call to the wikipedia_articles collector returns one dict per article, at $0.0005 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/wikipedia_articles/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "query": "web scraping",
        "lang": "en",
        "max_results": 5,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("title"), row.get("page_id"), row.get("description"), row.get("extract"))

Python: one Wikipedia articles run (Ricerca), printing title, page_id, description, extract

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the Wikipedia articles collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`query`	string	no	Search Wikipedia and read the top results. Use this OR titles.
`titles`	array	no	Exact article titles or /wiki/ URLs to read. Use this OR query.
`lang`	string	no	Wikipedia language edition (en, it, de…). Default en.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 10)	How many articles to deliver at most (1–50). You pay only for delivered articles.

Response fields

16 fields per article.

Fields of each row (article)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position.
`title`	string	Article title.
`page_id`	integer, nullable	MediaWiki page id.
`description`	string, nullable	Short description (Wikidata).
`extract`	string	Lead-section plain-text extract.
`url`	string	Canonical article URL.
`thumbnail`	string, nullable	Lead image thumbnail.
`lang`	string	Language edition read.
`last_modified`	string, nullable	Last revision time (ISO 8601).
`wikidata_id`	string, nullable	Wikidata item id (Q…).
`image`	string, nullable	Full-size lead image.
`revision_id`	integer, nullable	Revision id of the summary.
`page_type`	string, nullable	standard, disambiguation…
`latitude`	number, nullable	Latitude, for places.
`longitude`	number, nullable	Longitude, for places.
`word_count`	integer, nullable	Article length in words (search runs).

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/wikipedia_articles/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"query":"web scraping","lang":"en","max_results":5}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.0005 per delivered article.

What Wikipedia articles rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.0005
1,000	$0.50
10,000	$5.00

Up to 50 articles per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 4,000 articles. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free Wikipedia articles API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 4,000 articles of this collector at $0.0005 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 50 articles per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.0005 per delivered article, no subscription.

Get an API key Wikipedia API